Philosophic Classics From Plato to Derrida
THEMONADOLOGY 617
- This also proves that, strictly speaking, there never is either complete genera-
tion or perfect death, which would consist in the separation of the soul. What we call
generationconsists in developments and growths, just as what we call deathconsists in
involutions and diminutions.
- Philosophers formerly have been very perplexed concerning the origin of
forms, entelechies, or souls. Today, however, it has been discovered through precise
observations made on plants, insects, and animals that the organized bodies of nature
are never produced out of a chaos or putrefaction, but always out of seeds, in which
doubtless there has been some preformation. Hence it has been concluded, not only that
the organized body was already in the seed before conception, but also that there was a
soul in this body, and, in short, the animal itself. Through the conception, furthermore,
the animal has only been disposed to a great transformation, namely to become an ani-
mal of a different species. Something similar can even be observed outside generation,
as, for instance, when worms become flies, or caterpillars butterflies.
- Those animals among which some are elevated by means of the conception to
the grade of larger animals, may be called spermatic; while those among them which
remain within their species, that is, the majority, are born, multiply, and are destroyed
like the large animals. Only a small number of elect pass on to a greater stage.
- This, so far, has been but half the truth. Therefore I have concluded that if it be
true that the animal never begins naturally, it will not end naturally either, and that con-
sequently there will be, strictly speaking, neither generation nor entire destruction, that
is, death. These arguments made a posteriori and drawn from experience agree perfectly
with my principles deduced a prioria while ago.
- Thus it may be said that not only the soul (mirror of an indestructible uni-
verse) is indestructible, but also that the animal itself is indestructible, albeit its machine
often partly perishes, and casts off or takes on organic accretions.
- These principles have enabled me to propose a natural explanation for the
union or conformity of the soul and the organized body. The soul follows its own laws,
and so does the body. They meet by virtue of the pre-established harmonyprevailing
among all substances, since they all are representations of one and the same universe.
- The souls act according to the laws of final causes, through appetitions, ends,
and means. The bodies act according to the laws of efficient causes, that is, of motion. And
the two realms, that of efficient causes and that of final causes, are in mutual harmony.
- Descartes has recognized that souls cannot impart force to bodies, because
there is always the same quantity of force in matter. He believed, however, that the
soul was able to change the directions of bodies. For at his time it was unknown yet
that there is a law of nature according to which the total direction of matter is equally
conserved. If he had been aware of this, he would have hit upon my system of
preestablished harmony.
- This system maintains that bodies act as though there were no souls (assuming
the impossible); and that souls act as though there were no bodies; and that both act as
though the one influenced the other.
- As to spiritsor reasonable souls, I find that essentially all the living beings
and animals have the same nature, as I have said before, namely that the animal and
the soul begin with the world and end no more than the world. Nevertheless, the
reasonable souls have this in particular, that their little spermatic animals have only
ordinary or sensitive souls, as long as they remain undeveloped. As soon, however, as
those who, so to speak, are elected attain human nature through an actual conception,
their sensitive souls are promoted to the rank of human nature and to the prerogative
of spirits.
